Information is the most valuable commodity in the world today. It’s also the most vulnerable. As companies become more reliant on digital technologies and services, they are increasingly at risk of cyber attacks that can harm their reputation, cost them money, and even lead to long-term damage to their business. As a result, companies need effective ways to protect themselves against these risks by implementing digital risk protection strategies such as encryption and access management solutions.
What Is Digital Risk Protection
Risk protection in digital environments is the process of mitigating the potential negative impact of cyber attacks on a company’s reputation, finances, and operations. It can be achieved by implementing risk management strategies such as encryption and access management that reduce the likelihood of data breaches and mitigate the damage if they do occur. Digital risk protection is a set of technologies and processes that help protect your organization from the risks associated with digital transformation. Digital risk mitigation is a subset of cyber security, which in turn is a subset of IT risk management. Digital Risk Protection covers all three areas, Cyber Security focuses on protecting networks and systems from external threats, IT Risk Management focuses on protecting an organization’s data as it pertains to legal and regulatory requirements, and Digital Risk Mitigation focuses on helping to mitigate internal threats such as employee error or malicious intent.
Why Digital Risk Protection Is Important
Digital risk is a growing concern for businesses of all sizes. Companies that have been hit by a data breach know the dangers of digital risk well, but those who haven’t yet experienced it firsthand may not fully understand its importance.
The best way to protect yourself from digital risks is to take an active approach toward managing your digital risk. This means identifying new threats as they emerge and ensuring that your team has the knowledge and resources necessary to manage them effectively. There are some key things you need to know about digital risk: how it manifests itself in organizations; where it originates; how it can be mitigated or avoided altogether; and what steps companies should take now so they’re prepared for any potential incidents down the road
4 Quadrants Of Digital Risk Protection
There are four quadrants of digital risk protection:
1. Asset Mapping
Asset mapping is a big deal. In fact, it’s one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself against digital risk. This process is all about identifying what assets you have and where they are so that you can protect them properly when creating your security strategy.
A good example of asset mapping would be if there were an incident at a company and they wanted to know how many computers they had in total or what type of software was running on their workstations or laptops. With an asset map in place, this information could easily be retrieved without having to go through multiple layers of IT management before getting any sort of answer. So, in the case of a cyber-attack, asset mapping would allow you to quickly see what systems were impacted and who might have been affected. This can be particularly important in preventing future attacks from happening again.
2. Threat Monitoring
Threat monitoring is the process of identifying malicious activity. It’s a key component of digital risk protection and can be done in real-time or on an ongoing basis. Critical to threat monitoring is that it’s proactive, meaning you identify potential threats before they happen rather than waiting for them to occur and then reacting. For example, let’s say you’re using your credit card at a local grocery store and see someone nearby using their phone to film you making your purchase—this might seem like a harmless occurrence, but if they’re recording other customers’ purchases as well, it could be part of a larger cybercrime scheme called card skimming. Or maybe one day, when you log into Facebook, there are several posts from people claiming they’ve been hacked by hackers who’ve posted photos of themselves partying at Coachella (or wherever) without permission! These are both examples of malicious activity that could be detected by threat monitoring technology.
3. Risk Mitigation
Risk mitigation is the process of reducing the risk of a threat or vulnerability to an acceptable level. Risk mitigation can be achieved through prevention, detection, and response. Prevention is one of the most effective ways to mitigate risk because it prevents potential threats from materializing in your organization. However, it requires significant investment in technology and human capital that may not be practical for smaller companies or organizations with limited resources. A common method for preventing cyber attacks involves continuous security monitoring for intrusions that could potentially lead to sensitive data breaches. Monitoring assets throughout their lifecycle will help identify vulnerabilities before they become bigger issues down the road and allow you to take action before they result in financial loss or regulatory penalties!
4. Risk Management And Protection
The most important part of your digital risk management strategy is to understand the risks you face. This means integrating all of your assets, identifying the different ways they can be accessed, and understanding how they are used by employees and partners. It’s also important to know where these assets are located, which will help you prioritize what needs protecting.
Once you’ve identified all of these assets, it’s time to determine the impact or value each one has for your organization. You need to know how valuable each asset is in terms of money and time—and whether losing access would significantly impact business operations or reputation. Once again: it’s not just about protecting against loss; it’s also about preventing damage from happening in the first place!
Once an asset has been identified as being particularly valuable or sensitive, you should consider taking measures to protect it. For example, if the servers that store your company’s financial data are located in a facility that has been identified as being vulnerable to flooding or fire, then you may want to consider moving them.
Final Thoughts:
In today’s world, with the way technology is progressing, businesses need to have a digital risk protection plan in place before something bad happens. It doesn’t take long for cybercriminals to steal sensitive information from your company or even destroy your data if they want to. This means that you must constantly check your network’s security while staying aware of what threats are out there, so nothing slips through unnoticed.
